Power dissipation management for wired transceivers

Abstract

A system, method and apparatus for reducing a power consumed by a physical layer device (PHY). A length of a cable connecting the PHY to a link partner is determined. Based on the length, power provided to one or more components of the PHY, or any portion thereof, is reduced. The power provided is reduced while maintaining a level of reliability specified by a protocol governing operation of the PHY. The length can be determined using time-domain reflectometry (TDR) techniques. Any portion of an echo cancellation filter, a crosstalk filter, an equalizer, a precoder, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a digital-to-analog converter (DAC), a forward error correction (FEC) decoder and / or an FEC coder can be powered-down or power-optimized to reduce the overall power consumed by the PHY. The protocol governing operation of the PHY can be IEEE 802.3.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 737,469 filed Nov. 17, 2005, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]1. Field of the Invention[0003]The present invention generally relates to the power management of physical layer devices (PHYs). More specifically, the present invention provides the reliable operation of a PHY at a reduced power level.[0004]2. Background Art[0005]Various standards exist which define signaling characteristics and performance requirements to insure interoperability between PHYs from different vendors. PHYs are designed to fully comply with all aspects of a standard to be considered “standard compliant.” For example, IEEE 802.3 specifies that a 10 Gbps PHY must be capable of reliable operation over 100 meters of cable.[0006]A primary market for 10 Gbps PHYs is in data center applications where the majority of cables are often less t...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007]Accordingly, in one embodiment there is provided a system, method and apparatus for reducing power consumed by a physical layer device (PHY) based on the length of cable driven by the PHY while maintaining compliance to a level of reliability specified by a standard governing operation of the PHY.

Problems solved by technology

To be standard compliant, the complexity and power necessary for 100 m operation is required even if the PHY is connected to cables significantly shorter than 100 m. This requirement causes a PHY to consume more power than necessary to provide reliable communication and operation over cable lengths that are less than 100 m. Further, multiple instances of a 10 Gbps 100 m-capable PHY can exceed the power budget of many applications due to this requirement.

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